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MONDAY, MARCH 11, 2013
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
"Batman Incorporated" writer kills off fan favorite
The Dark Knight from "Batman Incorporated" poses with his son and latest Robin incarnation, Damian Wayne. Damian Wayne is the fourth Robin to perish at the hands of DC Comics writers.
Superhero or not; one thing is for sure; Batman is running the world's deadliest internship program.
PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY DC COMICS
In last month's issue of "Batman Incorporated," renowned scribe Grant Morrison hurled a controversy-charged batarang through the heart of the DC Nation when he decided to kill off Damian Wayne, the fourth Boy Wonder and genetically perfect offspring of Bruce Wayne and supervillainess Talia al Ghul. Despite being a relatively recent addition to the Bat family, the caustic, pinstized assassin had grown into an enduring fan favorite, and the outcry over the 10-year-old's death made international headlines, even in The New York Post and other publications that don't make a habit of covering fictional events.
Morrison, who created the character shortly after DC handed him the reigns to the "Batman" series in 2006, insists that Damian's demise was years in the planning and defends the graphic violence used to depict the sidekicks' final struggle against his growth-accelerated clone, a hulking, scimitar-wielding abomination known as the Heretic.
This isn't the first time the Dark Knight's junior partner has met with an untimely end. In 1988, hoping to offset sagging sales, DC editor Dennis O'Neil came up with the idea of letting his readers decide the fate of a major character. The first Robin, circus acrobat Dick Grayson, had outgrown the mantle and now fought alongside Batman under the persona of Nightwing. His replacement was Jason Todd, a petulant street urchin whose origin involved him attempting to steal the tires off the Batmobile.
Unlike the loyal, light-hearted Grayson, Todd was a maladjusted teen rebel who smoked, cussed and regularly questioned Batman's authority, especially his commitment to non-lethal force. He was largely unpopular with
the fans, and when O'Neill held a telephone poll on whether or not to kill the character, a slim majority (5.343 to 5.271) voted in favor of the young man's demise. The result was "A Death in the Family," the infamous four-issue story arc that culminated with Robin being savagely assaulted and ultimately murdered by the Joker.
So why do we get so worked up over the fate of imaginary characters? From the off-camera shooting of Bambi's mom and the traumatic regicide/fraxtide of Mufasa to J.K. Rowling's wholesale slaughter of seemingly half the wizarding world in the finale of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," our first intimate encounters with death are often experienced through the protective lens of fiction. Some characters take up residence in our hearts, and losing them can hurt. These experiences are both cathartic and instructive, a training-wheels version of the grieving process that promotes the necessity of letting go and moving on.
revitalizing experience for the series, which before his arrival had been plagued by static characters and flat, repetitive storytelling. His Damian was a Robin unlike any other, a brash, boastful little hellion the Scottish writer used as the impetus behind his plan to shake the cobwebs off a stagnant franchise.
I've watched people who don't cry during funerals break down during certain episodes of "Scrubs" or at the end of movies like "Big Fish" and "Grave of the Fireflies". And even though I know he's experiencing what amounts to a transcendental wardrobe change, I still can't make it through Gandalf's death in "Fellowship of the Ring" without rolling a tear or two.
As an avid fan of the Caped Crusader since childhood, I can say that Morrison's run on "Batman" has been a remarkable,
Grown in an artificial womb
it became obvious he was just a lost boy in search of an absent father. By the time of his death, he was redeemed in full, a hero who died defending the innocent while his parents were busy fighting each other.
and trained from birth by the League of Assassins to kill for sport and profit, the boy came to Gotham City as Talia's final taunt to her darling Detective, a living denouncement of everything Batman supposedly stands for. Yet as the series went on and Damian had the opportunity to bond with the rest of the Battfamily, especially Dick Grayson,
I know comics have an unfortunate habit of never letting the dead rest for long. Even Jason Todd was eventually resurrected as a wisecracking vigilante called the Red Hood. I just hope Morrison, who's leaving the series after wrapping up "Batman Incorporated," has the Bat-cojones to tell the other writers that Damian is officially offlimits. This bird has flown.
Edited by Brian Sisk
WORLD
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The YouTube phenomenon of the "Harlem Shake" has popped up in spots all over the world, but in Tunisia it's more than just a curiosity or a fad — it has become part of a bitter rivalry between the secularists and Islamists striving to shape the identity of this North African nation as it transitions to democracy after years of dictatorship.
"Harlem Shake" strikes Tunisia
TUNIS, Tunisia — After attacks by religious extremists, the assassination of an opposition politician and the resignation of the prime minister, Tunisia is now being assailed by... an Internet dance craze.
Videos posted by Tunisian students have provoked a violent backlash by conservative Muslims, condemnations from the education minister and hundreds of new copycat videos online.
In Tunisia, the "Harlem Shake" craze comes just over two years since a revolution overthrew a repressive secular dictatorship and ushered in new freedoms, including for religious ultraconservatives known as Salafis who are eager to impose their will — even violently at times. Salafis are suspected in the killing of leftist opposition leader Chokri Belaid, an assassination that triggered the resignation of Tunisia's prime minister earlier this year.
The global Internet sensation involves a 30-second video showing first one person dancing, then dozens grating maniacally to the song "Harlem Shake," recorded by Brooklyn disc jockey and producer Bauer. Thousands of new videos of everyone from Norwegian soldiers to Australian teenagers and now Tunisian students doing the "Harlem Shake" are now online.
Tunisia's experience with the video began with a group of students at Tunis' El Menzah high school producing their own version,
Opinions over the videos have been split, with some calling it immoral and provocative — even going so far as to call the students unbelievers and marked for death — while others seeing it as typical of humor in Tunisia, where many retain strong secular tastes.
In the El Menzah high school video, a single student dances to the song, quietly watched by others until the halfway point; then the video cuts to a whole slew of students, some in their underwear, some dressed as bearded Salafis and some as Gulf emirs flailing around.
which then spawned a host of copycat videos all over the country.
In the coastal city Mahdia, one student received 12 stitches on his head after beaten following one attack. In the southern city Sfax and in the resort city Sousse, police have had to intervene and separate groups battling over the right to make a "Harlem Shake" video.
The video sparked an angry reaction from Minister of Education Abdellatif Abid, who last week announced an investigation of the school's principal for allowing an "indecent" video to be filmed on the premises.
"This dance for us represents a way to vent, to forget for a little while all the stress we've been under for the past year," said Sabiha, a 21-year-old university student who protested Friday in front of the Education Ministry against the minister's investigation, performing a version of the dance.
Her colleague Saber, 24, who also did not want his last name used because of the tensions surrounding the song, said being able to dance like this was a fruit of Tunisia's revolution.
"We wanted to take advantage of our newfound freedoms thanks to the revolution, after the years of harassment and repression," he said.